Undercover Badge; Next Generation

Chapter twenty five

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

"Come on!" a chorus of nay-saying burst from the Blue Grove bleachers in disagreement with the ref. I laughed again. In spite of being a cheerleader, I'd never freaked for football and wasn't sharing the opinions of the people around me who were clearly into it. As soon as the game had gotten underway, the fans had stopped glancing back to look at Matthew and I, and they'd gone to clutching their hot chocolates and snacks as they enthusiastically watched the game. I'd expected Matthew to get really into it- but he'd been cool and calm, muttering his opinions rather than stating or yelling them, and laughing at the shenanigans around him. It's like we had our own bubble here at the back of the group, watching, separate from the rest and staring down at the lit field where the players, including his brother, went after the ball. This I had to give Joey- whether it was basketball or football, the boy did play well. Not as well as his brother, but pretty damn fantastically.

"Hey," he said, accompanying it with a squeeze of my gloved hand. "I'm going to go get a hot dog. Want something?" he said, and when looking directly into those eyes, a serious craving hit me. "Caramel apple and a water?" I quickly asked. He smiled and nodded before getting up, leaving me on my own.

I was grinning. Matthew had been holding my hand. IT was sort of obvious what that meant. And IT was pretty damn great.

"Ohmigod, Reena!" In that moment I knew I was about to die. "Dude! You came to watch a game!? You hate football!"

"I don't hate football, Ingrid." My exasperation was the kind practiced after years of frustration with the same conversation. 

She plopped herself down next to me, bundled in bright red looking like red riding hood in a ski jacket.

"My sister wanted to watch." She said, answering my question before I asked it. "Though, like, lately I think football's kinda cool. I mean those shorts are like, SUPER tight and those asses are like.... Super great." She got distracted by the men on the field before she shook herself. "So, who are you here with? You should have come with me, we-" she prattled off and began rattling, and I found myself distracted by how pretty she was. Wrapped in her massive red ski jacket and her lips painted the same colour, cheeks flushed against her pale skin from the cold, she was gorgeous.

"Reena?" she deadpanned when she realised I wasn't listening. "You ok?"

I was most decidedly not. When she realised that I'd come here with Matthew and hadn't told her about it, I was going to have my ass handed to me royally. "Yeah, listen, Ing-" I started.

"Hey, Ingrid." Matthew said when he walked up, handing me my apple on a stick. He had his hands full balancing three hotdogs in one hand and the other sporting a jumbo bag of skittles, a bag of caramel corn and my apple. I watched his brow furrow as he, for a second, tried to figure out how to get to the two bottles of water sticking out his jacket pocket. I laughed at the frustration evident on his face, and reached up to pluck the waters from his pocket, dangling the stick of my apple.

"Thanks." He muttered and put his food down on the seat next to him and taking his bottle from my hand, his fingers hot on my cold skin.

"Sure, and thank you." I deadpanned, and dug my teeth into the caramel coating, the apple beneath snapping and the sweet, warm taste of the caramel filling my mouth. A squeak from my left made me look- Ingrid's eyes were wide as she stared. I was dead.

***

"I thought she was going to take your head off." Matthew said, still laughing. The game had ended twenty minutes before in a draw. As far as I could tell though, the team was in high spirits and everyone was heading to the diner. Most of the people were off the bleachers and on the fields talking animatedly, families and friends catching up, kids chasing each other across the field and running in and out between the trees at the edge of the forest. Their faces shone in delight as they ignored the cold. They looked like fairies as they darted between trees and shrubbery, half hidden by the darkness of the forest and lit by the spotlights, and every now and then a little flash of movement could be caught by the few kids that had ventured a little too deep between the trees but always returned safely.